Russia shows stability that nobody needs

Just like in 2009 Russia took 59^th place in the rating of travel industries’ competitive ability of 139 countries. Relevant studies are performed by World Travel Forum once in two years based on 14 factors of the travel sector’s development level. These include state legislative regulation, safety, industry’s priority, transport and tourist infrastructure, pricing policy, business climate along with human, cultural and natural resources.

Russia’s neighbors in the rating are Uruguay (58^th place) and Argentina (69^th). The leaders are Switzerland, Germany and France. Chad occupies the last place.

The strongest sides of Russia are natural and cultural resources (4^th and 13^th places respectively), the number of cell phones (9^th), air routes length (7^th), the number of airlines (5^th), rail network quality (31^st), availability of doctors (3^rd) and hospital beds (2^nd). The figure showing the number of international trade fairs and exhibitions (39^th place) doesn’t look bad, too.

At the same time WTF experts put Russia at 122^nd place in terms of travel industry’s priority to the state, on 119^th place in terms of tourism marketing and branding efficiency and on 91^st in terms of the government’s outlay on tourism. The main factor for travel industry development – people’s friendliness to foreign tourists – is not one of Russia’s fortes: 136^th place this year, 131^st in 2009. In the rate of openness for tourism Russia placed 109^th, in the category “recommendations for business travels expansion” – just 132^nd.

Russia took 105^th place in the index of accommodation costs and 88^th in the number of hotel beds. In terms of transparency of bilateral agreements between air carriers our country goes 125^th, the quality of airline services earned 104^th position for Russia. Road infrastructure – 125^th, its load – 123^rd.

Generally speaking the state of Russian tourism sector hasn’t changed much since 2009. Press-secretary of the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUTI) Mrs. Irina Tiurina thinks there is nothing surprising in this fact. As far back as 2005 RUTI made a rating of issues interfering with tourism development, based on opinions of 115 inbound tour operators from 24 regions of Russia. It had 30 items; almost all of them are still up-to-date.

Take the first line of the rating - the growth of price for basic tourist services. Applicable? Oh Yes! At a recent sitting of Moscow’s government’s Tourism Coordinating Council Mr. Vladimir Rudakov, the head of Sputnik-Moscow” travel company, made a fresh example: “It’s cheaper for the Dutch to fly from Amsterdam to Thailand than to Moscow. Double room at the Marriott Hotel in Vienna can be booked for €160 per night. In Moscow such rate can only be found on weekends and it would be considered a piece of luck. Add to this a pricy visa and an expensive airfare”.

3^rd line of the rating: Lack of modern budget hotels in the provinces.

5^th line: Shortage of state-of-the-art buses for transportation of tourist groups.

11^th: High cost of entry visa, complicated application procedure.

14^th: Compulsory registration at the Immigration Office for foreigners.

20^th: Low quality of service at Russian hotels

24^th: Lack of restaurants, bars and other public catering establishments qualifying for welcoming of foreign guests

And so forth, every issue lives on.

Tourism is a complex industry involving almost every economy sector, so most of its issues come from the system and can’t be resolved by a single executive body. But still some problems could have been dealt with quite promptly.

For one to cancel mandatory registration for foreigners – a bothering and humiliating procedure of reporting to an Immigration Office in every town during the trip. While the Russians can travel within the entire Schengen zone freely and nobody cares much about their whereabouts or what they are up to.

72-hour visa-free stay in Russia for the passengers of cruise liners and ferries could be extended to the travelers arriving by train or air. We once had a successful experience in welcoming British football fans visiting the Champions League final in Moscow with no entry visas. Thousands of people came and nothing bad happened. But today we complicate visa regulations, for example for Germany, explaining it to be “counter measures”. However Germany reports 60.3 million foreign tourists’ overnights in 2010, while Russia put on the record slightly over 2 million tourists for the same period.

And as for the friendliness towards foreign guests let’s have a look at this example. Some time ago the MFA of Japan and the Japanese Embassy hosted a series of seminars for inbound travel companies welcoming Japanese tourists in Russia. One of their recommendations read: “Training to work out an appropriate smile is required”. It emerged that the Japanese see a smile in different ways: as a face feature and as an expression of feelings. The Russians when addressing the guests at best use the first type, while the Japanese essentially require the second one. So the 136^th place in terms of the Russians’ friendliness is not accidental at all. And as for the 1.6% increase of the number of tourist arrivals to Russia it is not growth as one can see it, it is stagnation that has been underway for the last years.